1. Field of Disclosure
This disclosure relates generally to packaging for pharmaceutical products, and more particularly to an overlay that can be applied to a medication card to provide dosage instructions to the user.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Packaging for dispensing pharmaceutical products includes a variety of presentation options. Reference can be made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,958,690, 4,084,695, 4,253,572, 4,372,445, 4,384,649, 5,377,839 and 6,082,544 and to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0037436 A1 for examples of known medicinal dispensing systems. One type of medicinal dispensing system includes a medication wallet having one or more, e.g., two, three, four or even more blisters that encapsulate pills or capsules, and the like. A typical medication wallet has an outer card or cover, an inner card that is sometimes referred to as a medication card, and one or more blisters containing pharmaceutical products. One type of configuration is a 28-capsule blister having four rows of capsules, each row having seven capsules for each day of the week.
One issue facing pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmacies with medicines employing wallets is that patients requiring the same medicine often need a different dosage amount. Thus, manufacturers are required to create different wallets to support different dosage amounts although using the same drug product. In addition, pharmacies are forced to order mass quantities of the same drug product in wallets having differing dosage amounts, thereby raising the risk that a particular dosage amount may expire if not used in time. The numerous presentations of the same drug product may also contribute to confusion during the dispensing of the drug product to the patient since differences on the outer package may be difficult to differentiate from one to another. Another issue is that the medicine provided in the medication wallets is disseminated in multiple countries having different languages and requiring different country-specific regulatory language. Thus, the medication wallet must include instructions in multiple languages and contain country-specific regulatory language thereby forcing pharmaceutical manufacturers to print medication wallets directed to these country-specific applications.